


Omamori

by oyogihodai (alder_knight)



Category: Free!, High☆Speed!
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Holidays, New Years, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Swimming, Traditions, swimming lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 00:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5765287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alder_knight/pseuds/oyogihodai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Rin was on the floor in front of the couch, stretching out his hamstrings while the two of them watched a movie, when she spoke.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Onii-chan,” Gou began, in a voice Rin knew was supposed to sound casual, “will you teach me how to swim?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Rin comes home to spend New Year's with his family after the first semester training with his Sydney university team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omamori

Rin was seated on the floor in front of the couch, stretching out his hamstrings while the two of them watched a movie, when she spoke.

“Onii-chan,” Gou began, in a voice Rin knew was supposed to sound casual, “will you teach me how to swim?”

***  
  
Flying home for New Year’s was complicated. Rin had made the trip from Sydney frequently enough over the years that it had begun to feel routine, but the majority of those trips had occurred during a very rough handful of years. As a result, overlaid on the present journey were the specters of childhood returns to Sano and Iwatobi to visit for the holiday, visits tinged with the overblown, childish shame of failure. Homesickness had dueled with humiliation and the guilt of letting his family, and his father’s memory, down. Although he’d missed his loved ones desperately, he had felt a need to hold himself apart from them, to spare them his weakness. Even today, even while he pursued his Olympic dream into adulthood, even as he began to achieve the progress he had always striven towards so keenly, that same old lurch in his stomach came as he groggily stepped off the plane.

Standing by the baggage carousel, waiting for the ramp window to disgorge his bag, Rin took a few deliberate breaths, clenching his fists and shaking them out. That was then; this was now. 

Rin adjusted his backpack and scooped his duffel off the conveyor belt as it came around. He made his way through customs on autopilot. As he stepped into the filtering sunlight of the international arrivals area, a voice called out to him and his attention snapped back to the outside world. 

“Onii-chan!” Gou waved, grinning, her red ponytail swinging behind her as she bounced on the balls of her feet. She was blocked from him by the belt barrier. Rin felt his anxiety lift. He shouldered through the crowd, around the barrier post and past a clutch of liveried drivers holding up name placards. Gou dove for him. 

“Oi, you’re heavy,” he groused as she nearly bowled him over. 

“Guess you haven’t been working out enough,” she retorted, standing on her tiptoes and pushing him backward. 

Rin laughed, dropped his bag, and hugged her back properly, hauling her off her feet. 

“I’m home,” he grinned into her hair. 

“Welcome back, onii-chan!” Gou replied, beaming.  
  
***

Gou sat with her gym bag across her knees while Rin stood facing her, holding onto a strap that hung from the roof of the train car. 

“You’re sure about this,” he said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Mm,” nodded Gou, “I have a passkey, the school doesn’t have to be open for us to get in.”

Rin scoffed. “That’s not what I mean.”

Gou frowned and looked out the window for a while. Rin pulled out his phone, checking messages. After a few minutes Gou replied.

“I want to learn,” she said, quiet over the rattle and hum of the train. “I’d rather have you teach me than anybody else.”

“Okay,” said Rin, keeping his tone light.

The train slowed to a stop and the doors opened to let out a trickle of passengers. The car was nearly empty. Rin sighed, and then slid into the seat by his sister.

“Here,” he said, pulling his phone out again, “want to see the other pictures from that koala sanctuary I visited with the Sydney guys?”

Gou perked up for cute animal pictures and stories of Australia while they traveled the remaining few stops to his alma mater.

***  
_  
“Oniiiiiii-chaaaaaaaaaan!”_

_Gou’s hands cupped around her mouth as her tiny voice struggled to break through the cacophony of the swim club bleachers. It was Rin’s first tournament with the Iwatobi swimmers who would later be his relay teammates, and she had tagged along with some of her school friends to cheer him on. Rin pretended irritation when they clambered around him in the hallway, but in truth he did feel a bit like a rockstar, even if his fans were all little girls._

_He crouched on the starting block, poised for his race to begin. When his sister’s voice cracked through the ambient noise around the pool, he felt a surge of pride. He was swimming for their father, after all. Gou couldn’t do it, so Rin would carry that torch for them both._

_Then the gun went off and Rin dove in and he didn’t hear her again until he pulled himself out at the end of the race._  
  
***

Gou tightened her ponytail and studied her swim cap, evidently strategizing how to fit all her hair under it. She had changed into a black racerback with red stripes up the sides, which amused Rin, since it meant that their colors matched. Matsuoka red.

“Here,” said Rin, “watch me put on mine.”

Gou looked sheepish. “I’ve spent so much time around swimmers getting suited up,” she explained. “I should really know how to do this already. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s fine,” said Rin, tucking his fringe under his own cap neatly. “Just put your hair back in a tight bun first, then it should be straightforward enough.”

Gou struggled with the cap, the rubber catching her hair and pulling it more than once. “How did I manage this in elementary school?” she grumbled aloud.

Rin stretched out his shoulders, waiting on Gou patiently. The natatorium of Samezuka Academy felt huge and empty with nobody else in it, though in truth it was dwarfed by the facilities he trained in now in Australia. “You probably had a teacher put it on you back then.”

“Oh,” said Gou, finally pulling her hands away, “I guess you’re right. I don’t remember much from those lessons.”

“Yeah,” said Rin, stepping towards the pool. “I don’t expect you would.”

***  
_  
Rin and Gou sat on the steps of the Iwatobi house their mother would later inherit, arguing over something inconsequential and waiting on their grandmother to return from the water, which she did at just that moment._

_“Grandmaaaa!” cried Gou, dropping the dandelion head she’d been playing with. Rin echoed her cry. They both hurried down the walkway to hug their grandmother around the knees, ignoring the sopping fabric of her diving uniform._

_Matsuoka Kyou laughed down at her young grandchildren, temporarily immobilized by their hugs. “Alright, off with you. I’m an old woman and I need to change out of these wet clothes. You can take a look at today’s catch while I’m drying off, if you like.”_

_Rin detached himself and eagerly tried to take the wooden bucket from his grandmother. It was too heavy for him, but she helped him set it down in such a way that he felt like he was carrying the brunt of it. “Grandma, so many urchins today!” he announced delightedly. He tried to pick one up but the spines pricked into his palm, and he dropped it back onto the pile of mussels in dismay._

_Kyou was headed into the house, but she paused and called back, “We’ll have urchins with dinner tonight, and if you like, I’ll help you each clean and dry one of the shells to keep. Would that be nice?”_

_“Yes!” the children replied, peering excitedly into the bucket, imagining what the spiny creatures might look like without their swaddlings of pincushion spikes._

_Years later, after an accident at sea left that home vacant, after Gou and Rin and their mother moved into the late Kyou’s now-empty house, Gou set a nubbed, soft green urchin shell below their grandmother’s portrait on the family altar, beside the incense bowl._  
  
***

The water came up just about to Gou’s armpits. Her eyes were nervous but her mouth was set in a determined look Rin knew both his and their mother’s faces also took.

“Alright!” he announced, upbeat, stepping into the captain-teacher role with arms folded across his chest. “Ready to get started?”

“Ready!” replied Gou, finally cracking a smile.

“Okay. The first thing you’re going to do is learn to float. Hold onto the edge of the pool - right, exactly - and breathe some nice deep breaths. Oi, don’t hyperventilate. Alright, now walk your feet back - right - and just let your legs float up behind you.”

Gou had been breathing shallowly, nervously, but she filled her lungs with air and let her feet drift off the bottom of the pool until her legs came up behind her, floating.

“That’s it,” Rin encouraged, putting a hand under her ankles to bring her legs closer to parallel with the floor. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” replied Gou. “I’m good. This much is fine.”

“Okay, great,” said Rin. “You can hold this for a few minutes, and then we’ll try having you float on your back, and once you can do that we’ll go into a proper dead man’s float.”

Gou’s feet kicked a little, and she turned her head to him.

“That’s - that is - face-down floating, that’s all I meant, that’s just the name of it. It’s not bad. You’ll catch on quick, you’re a Matsuoka.”

Gou looked troubled, but she turned her face back to the wall of the pool, and allowed her feet to return to the water’s surface.

“You’re doing great,” Rin said again, hoping he hadn’t slipped up too badly.

***  
  
Rin sat up straight, his interest in the monster movie they were watching suddenly lost. “What’s with this question all of a sudden?”

Gou smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes. “I just wanted to know,” she said, still forcing a casual tone, “whether you might teach me to swim.” 

Rin pulled his legs back under him, turning to face the couch cross-legged. “Well, yeah, I mean, sure, I’d be happy to teach you, I just don’t… why now? And why me? Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask Makoto, since teaching new swimmers is his actual job? He’s back from Tokyo for the holiday, he texted me.” 

Gou looked away, and Rin knew he had misstepped somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where. “I’m not asking Makoto-senpai, onii-chan,” she said quietly, firmly. “I’m asking you.” 

“Yeah, sure,” said Rin, “alright.” 

Gou nodded and allowed herself a small smile. “Thank you,” she said, and returned her attention to the movie. Presently Rin did the same.  
  
***

“Hey, good work today,” said Rin, handing his sister a colorful plastic cup.

Gou accepted the smoothie cheerfully, evidently satisfied with her first day's lesson. “Thanks, onii-chan.” She slid into a hard plastic chair on one side of a round metal table in the juice bar, and Rin took a seat across from her. His beverage was a brutal-looking “green power blend” that was full of vitamins and minerals and tasted like the tailpipe of a lawn mower. Hers had mango and banana and a shot of strawberry protein powder. She took a sip and smiled around the straw, savoring it. 

Rin sipped his with a grimace. It wasn’t good, but at least he was used to it.

“So, how do you feel?” he asked Gou. She looked over at him, considering.

“Well, it seems like a good start. I can float and I can breathe without inhaling water, that must be half the battle, right?”

“Definitely.” Rin crumpled his straw wrapper and tossed it into the bin a few tables away. He looked back at Gou. “Listen, I don’t want to push you if you don’t want to talk about it, obviously, but you have to understand that I’m still completely baffled as to why you changed your mind about swimming. And why now, of all times.”

Gou sighed, nodded, pulled at her damp ponytail to tighten it. “Yeah. I guess that’s fair,” she said. “Can we not talk about that now, though? I’ll explain later, I’m just tired.”

“Sure, sure,” said Rin, taking another sip of his foul drink, and then he looked away with a smirk. “You know, if you spent even a tenth of the time you waste ogling those guys’ muscles on building up your own, you wouldn’t be so tired right now…”

Gou threw a plastic spoon at Rin’s head, and he ducked just in time to dodge it.

***  
_  
Rin hadn’t even known about the nightmares._

_He had been excused from class early when he got the news about his sister, and now he was waiting outside the nurse’s office, still short of breath. All fifth graders had been set to participate in a survival swimming workshop that day, but something had gone wrong when Gou’s class took its turn._

_Rin remembered his own class’s survival swimming training. They had all brought an extra change of clothes that day. They had warmed up in the pool in their swimsuits, got out to put on dry clothes over their bathing suits, and then jumped back into the water to try to swim fully-clothed. Rin had done better than most, but it hadn’t gone terribly well for anyone. The rest of the class had been dedicated to learning tactics for staying safe after falling into the water._

_Rin was still waiting on the bench when his mother showed up, and that was when he knew there was real trouble._

_“Rin, honey,” his mother said gently, “we need to take Gou home now. Will you ask your friends to tell the coach that you won’t be at the swim club today?”_

_Rin didn't even complain. He nodded and ran off immediately to comply. When he returned, his mother was consoling his sister, who looked physically unharmed but terribly distraught. Her face was flushed from crying, and her hair was tangled and wet._

_“Her father, and her grandmother,” their mother was explaining to the school nurse. “She gets terrible nightmares about drowning. I should have known this might be a problem, I just didn’t think of it because her brother made it through fine…”_

_Rin looked down at Gou’s face. She was still breathing shakily, the breath of someone who has cried too hard for too long to cry anymore, but would still be sobbing if they could. He reached out and took her hand._

_“It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m going to become a really great swimmer, the best in the world, and then if you fall in I can rescue you. If you ever get scared of the water, you just tell me, and I’ll come help you. Okay?”_

_She sniffed up at him, eyes wet and red. “Okay,” she breathed._

_He squeezed her hand. Their mother finished talking with the nurse, and she and Rin brought Gou home._  
  
***

“I hope you’re ready for this party action,” announced Rin, tossing Gou a kickboard. She made a face. He shrugged. “You want to learn, this is how you learn. Today we’re going to start with kicks.”

Gou labored up and down the length of the pool, the same look of determination molded across her features, beginning with a flutter kick and working her way through the basic movements of whip and dolphin. She did learn quickly, Rin was pleased to discover, although she was initially clumsy and lacking in physical strength and stamina. “Hard work trumps everything else,” he reminded her, and she moved one hand off the kickboard to give a thumbs-up, breathing hard, before setting off for another length of the pool.

Rin guided Gou through drills for an hour and a half. Then she took a break, exhausted (“onii-chan, you’re so meeeeean”), while he ran through his own vacation practice regimen of laps and drills. Gou watched attentively and timed his reps.

When he emerged from the pool, she brought him his towel. “Nice work, kid!” she declared, tossing the towel to him.

Rin caught it. “Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

Gou smiled impishly and shrugged. “I’m a team manager, it’s what I do.”

Rin pulled off his swim cap and rubbed the towel over his hair. “Well, you’re damn good at it, from what I’ve been able to tell. Makoto showed me the training regimens you used to write up for them. You’ve got a good head for this stuff.” He grabbed his water bottle from the poolside and took a long drink.

Gou blinked at him, and then straightened her shoulders, looking pleased. “It’s up to me to make sure our team is the best it can possibly be! I take my job very seriously. You know that, onii-chan.”

“I do,” agreed Rin. He shook out his hair and put on a smirk. “I guess excellence runs in the family.”

Gou rolled her eyes and went for her duffel bag.

“In all seriousness,” called Rin, “is that something you’ve ever considered for the future? You’d be good at it. We’ve never really talked about what your dreams for the future might be.”

“My dreams….” Gou paused in rummaging through her things, looking thoughtful. “Well, I do have them,” she replied after a moment, “and athletic training is in the running as one of them. I haven’t decided yet, though.”

“Glad you’re thinking about it. There isn’t a whole lot of time for you to decide.”

“Mm,” Gou agreed, taking out her dry clothes and heading towards the bathroom. “I’m very aware of that.”

***  
_  
White robes surrounded him; white robes walked in front of him, white robes and white hats; and he and his sister wore white. The red of his little sister’s hair stood out bright in his peripheral vision as the two of them followed the line of robed figures that stretched down the pier. They stepped, shuffled, followed. He felt hollow, the shell of his heart scraped clean. He wanted his father. His father was gone._

_The ocean lapped at the pylons that supported the rough wood below their feet._

_Rin held tightly to Gou’s small hand as she walked steadily beside him. Neither of them cried._  
  
***  
  
` 7:15`  
`Nagisa`  
`HIIIIIIIIIIIII RIN-RIN HAPPY NEW YEAR’S!!!!! are you in iwatobi?? do you wanna hang out??? `

`7:16`  
`Nagisa`  
`Rei and I are planning a shrine trip, we’re trying to get everybody to come and that means YOU!!!`

`8:03`  
`Makoto`  
`Welcome home, Rin! Are you with your mom and Gou yet? We’re trying to put together a trip to the shrine on New Year’s day, and maybe all go out together after. Will you be busy?`  
  
Rin returned from a long run to find a string of texts from the Iwatobi gang waiting for him, sent suspiciously early in the morning. It was true that he hadn’t kept them informed as to the specifics of his travel plans. This year he was making an effort to do his filial piety duty by his family, and prioritize spending time with them first. He owed them that much, after all they’d put up with, and anyway he’d missed them. He sent Nagisa and Makoto back short replies to say he could meet up later on New Year’s Day, and then took a quick shower before heading down to breakfast. Gou was sitting at the table, reading a magazine and eating toast with marmalade.

“Good morning, onii-chan,” she said distractedly, taking a bite of her toast.

“Morning,” Rin replied, opening the refrigerator. He took out eggs, yogurt, and some leftover vegetables, and headed to the counter. He began cracking eggs into a bowl.

“Want some?” he offered.

Gou shook her head. “No, thanks. I think Mom already ate, too. Do you want tea?”

“Sure.”

He sipped his tea while he whisked the eggs and vegetables together and poured them into a pan. Once they were cooked to his liking, he slid them out onto a plate and spooned some yogurt into a bowl. He went to sit across from his sister, whose magazine was actually an old competitive swimming periodical that Rin had subscribed to years ago.

“Hey, was that mine?”

“It was in the living room,” Gou said, not looking up.

“I don’t care if you have it, I just haven’t seen that magazine in ages. Anything useful?”

Gou flipped a page. “Some of it. This article is about tapering. I don’t know much about it. It sounds like it’s useful for levels above the one Iwatobi is competing on. It’s still interesting, though.”

Rin got a look at the page she was reading. There was a graph of strokes and times on one side, and a line of fit men in swimsuits on the other. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re reading it for the articles.”

“Very funny,” Gou replied automatically. She seemed pretty engrossed. 

Rin sliced a banana into his yogurt and shook some hot pepper sauce onto his eggs. He started to eat his breakfast. For a while they sat in relative silence, Rin lost in his own thoughts about his training schedule for the rest of the trip.

Presently Gou sighed and flipped the magazine closed. She tightened her ponytail and took a sip of her tea. “This is my last year of high school,” she said, setting the cup back down carefully.

Rin looked up from his yogurt, curious.

Gou continued. “I’ve spent the last two and a half years watching people learn the same thing you keep saying: how amazing it is to swim with your friends. Honestly, I… I mean, you must know this. I joined the Iwatobi Swim Club because of you, onii-chan. You were upset and you weren’t acting like yourself, and I thought…” She trailed off, and then shook her head. “Anyway, the point is I didn’t do it for myself, in the beginning, but now I’m there because I want to be there. And all this time I’ve been working hard and doing my best to help our team grow and improve, and I love my job as manager but… I don’t want to just watch anymore. I’m not interested in competing, I’ve never had that drive you have and anyway I’m a lousy athlete, I just… these aren’t just other club members, they’re my teammates. We’re a team. Nagisa-kun and Rei-kun especially, we’re friends. They’re my friends now, and I want to feel like I’m part of their team, not just the manager. I want to swim with them before I graduate.”

Rin’s chest felt tight. He set down his spoon. “Gou…”

“And also,” Gou went on, looking at Rin now, and then away, “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. When I was little I imagined all the scary ways Dad might have died, and then when Grandma died too I was sure that if I got in the water again it would trap me and never let go. I still get nightmares sometimes, though it’s not as bad. I think managing the swim club helps, actually. I can be around the pool now and it's not a big deal. But I still can't go in. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I don’t want to keep avoiding the water just because it scares me.” She looked up, suddenly ferocious. “You better not laugh, I mean it.”

“I’m not going to laugh.”

“Well, good.” Gou looked down at her plate again and began absently shredding the remains of the crust of her toast. “You wanted to know why I asked you to teach me now, and that’s why. And it has to be you because you’re the only one who knows why it’s hard. I don’t want to talk about that with Makoto-senpai or the others.”

Rin nodded. 

“And you… you said, when we were little… that you’d help me if I was scared of the water. I haven’t forgotten that. So that’s why it has to be you.”

Swallowing hard, Rin said, “I meant it. I meant it then, I still mean it.” He coughed, and then, to break the earnest vulnerability of the room, reached over and mussed up Gou’s hair. She yelled in surprise and irritation while he declared, “And good thing too, since I’m immune to the Matsuoka curse! The water doesn’t stand a chance against me, or you, once you’ve got the hang of it.”

Gou threw his hand off and shook out her hair, annoyed. “Onii-chan…” she grumbled. 

He laughed even as she shoved him and he spilled tea down his shirt.

***  
_  
The path up the hill to the cemetery was uneven, and Rin had to catch Gou once as her feet slipped on the loose soil. “Oi, careful.”_

_“Ah, thanks!”_

_It was the first time in a long time that Rin had not been alone while visiting his father. Gou set fresh flowers in the holders that flanked the Matsuoka family grave marker, while Rin lit a candle and a bundle of incense._

_Gou crouched down and prayed, closing her eyes. Rin preferred to stand. They stayed there together for some long minutes, each absorbed in their own reflections, until Gou looked up at Rin._

_“Onii-chan, are you okay on time?” The prefectural tournament bus would be waiting back at Samezuka._

_The two of them prepared to leave. Before they did, though, Rin called Gou to wait a moment._

_“Here,” he said, handing her a photograph. It had been his talisman for years._

_“This is… Dad’s?” She studied it wide-eyed. In it, a young Matsuoka Toraichi stood poolside, grinning, holding up a trophy, celebrating victory with his relay teammates._

_Rin had clung to that photo during the years he was off training alone, to remind him of why he swam. He didn’t need that reminder anymore._

_“I bet if we hung it up in the Iwatobi SC, it would make Dad happy.”_

_Gou smiled broadly. “Okay!”_

_In the months to come, Gou’s team’s photo would come to hang on the same wall as this one, proudly displaying a sixth-place medley relay finish in the national swim competition. Beside it hung the disqualified winning team of Makoto, Nagisa, Rin, Haruka, and Rei from regionals the year before, and elsewhere on the wall was Rin with Haru and the others from elementary school. Gou had played a part in some of those photos. She just wasn’t in any of them._  
  
***

“Onii-chan! I’m gonna swim today, so just watch me!”

“Don’t get cocky,” replied Rin, coming to the side of the pool where his sister sat with her feet hanging in, just finishing his warm-up. “Hop in.”

Gou clambered over the side and plunked down into the water, then let Rin guide her through a series of warmups with the kickboard.

“All set?” he asked. Gou nodded. “Alright, I’m going to hold you up while you practice the motions. Cup your hands - right, like that - now scoop them forward through the water like you’re digging in the sand. Keep your head up and back. This is terrible technique for any actual stroke, by the way, I just wanted to get you swimming by New Year’s. Technically you could dog paddle in a freestyle race, although you would definitely lose. Okay, good. Now you’re going to keep doing that with your hands, and kick your feet like with the kickboard, and I’m going to let go. Keep some air in your lungs, it’ll help you stay buoyant. Ready?”

Rin released Gou and stepped back. She started to sink and flailed a little to keep her head above water, but it worked. She was sending up huge plumes of water and kicking erratically, moving in no particular direction, straining her neck to keep her head up. But she was swimming.

Rin whooped and raised a fist in the air, smacking it down with a splash on the water’s surface. “Gou, you’re doing it! You’re swimming!”

Gou started to laugh and then she caught water in her mouth and breathed some of it in, so Rin shot over to her, helping her back to standing and thumping her between the shoulderblades while she coughed.

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” he nodded, waiting for her to clear the water from her airways. “But you did it, Gou!”

Still a little winded, Gou looked up at him, wiping her eyes and mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah,” she said, breaking into a small, proud smile. “I did!”

“Alright,” said Rin, backstroking away from her, “start from the wall and swim to me. I’ll come help you if you have any trouble. Okay?”

Gou bounded over and grabbed the edge of the pool with one hand, shooting Rin a thumbs-up with the other. “Okay!”

Once she was settled, Rin called out, in English, “ _Take your marks… ready... go!_ ”

Gou pushed off from the wall, determinedly paddling over to him. Rin cheered her on. “You’re doing great, Gou!”

***  
_  
“Don’t call me that. Call me Kou.”_

_Rin stopped and turned around. This was a new development. “What?”_

_“Call me Kou,” his sister insisted. “Gou is a boy’s name.”_

_“Who told you that?” he snapped, perplexed. Had this happened while he was getting settled in Australia?_

_“Kids at school. And they were right. Call me Kou instead.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater and tucked her bangs behind her ear as if she were trying to look more grown up._

_Rin shook his head. “I’m not calling you that. Your name is Gou. Besides, Kou is too close to Kyou. It sounds like Grandma’s name. It’s weird.”_

_“It’s not weird! And anyway, I’m not doing it because of Grandma, I just don’t feel like being called Gou anymore. So call me Kou, alright?”_

_“I’m not going to. And you’re totally doing it because of Grandma, there’s no point lying to me.” He picked up his book and went over to the kotatsu to sit and read._

_“I’m not lying!”_

_“You are too. You’ve been acting weird since she died. I miss her too, you know.” He flipped to his open page. He looked up a moment later when, startled, he heard Gou sniffling. “Wait, are you - are you crying?”_

_Gou rubbed furiously at her eyes with her sleeve before running out of the room. “You’re mean, onii-chan!”_

_“Gou -” he called after her, but now her footsteps were thudding up the stairs, and there was the slam of the door to her room. Bewildered, Rin sat for a few long moments before picking his book back up and trying to read, though it wasn’t long before he gave up and turned on the TV instead._  
  
***

Matsuoka Hatsu commanded an air of nobility even in the electric light of the kitchen, calling her children downstairs. Her kimono was a deep maroon with white chrysanthemums sparsely decorating the lower half, and the white fur shawl she wore over her shoulders complimented her white and gold waist sash. Her dark red hair was clipped back off her face, and a single white ribbon chrysanthemum was pinned over her ear. “Rin! Gou-chan! Hurry up, it’s time to go!”

“Coming, Mom!” called Gou. Rin could hear her scurrying around her room, rummaging through drawers. He smoothed down his own button-up shirt, adjusting his blazer and knotting his scarf as he entered the kitchen.

“Good morning,” he said to his mother, who was waiting by the entryway, holding his coat and a bouquet of fresh cut flowers. He stifled a yawn as he took his coat from her and slid it on, feeling in the pockets for his gloves. As he did up the zipper, Gou rounded the corner from the stairway, also clad in kimono. Hers was a light pink, with darker pink and red chrysanthemum blossoms decorating the lower half, like her mother’s. Her sleeves were longer, though, and her hair flowers more ornate, with little white blooms cascading down in strands. The white fur wrap she wore around her shoulders, Rin recognized, had belonged to their grandmother.

“You both look really nice,” said Rin, trying not to feel awkward about the occasion’s formality, and his mother thanked him briskly and shooed him along. He slid his feet into a pair of brown loafers while Gou and their mother stepped into black wooden sandals. Hatsu took a parasol from beside the door, gave each of her children a final assessing look-over, and opened the door. “Come on,” she said, “let’s not be late.”

The three stepped out into the brisk pre-dawn morning and began to make their way to the shrine.

***  
_  
As a small child, Gou always wanted to tag along with Rin. It didn’t matter where he was going. She was his sister, and she wanted to go too. Today he was meeting some school friends to spend a day at the beach. One of their mothers was there to supervise the group, so Gou had been allowed to come along, despite Rin’s protests._

_It didn’t take Rin long to figure out how to shake off his little sister. “Guys, come on, let’s swim out to the sandbar! I’ll race you!”_

_“Be careful, boys,” cautioned his friend’s mother, looking up from her magazine._

_“We will,” sighed her son, before taking off after Rin._

_“Onii-chan!” cried Gou, panicking. “Wait!” She hurried down to the water’s edge, but as soon as the waves began to lick at her toes, she stopped short. “Onii-chan!”_

_“Now, come on, Gou-chan,” called the boy’s mother. “It’s alright if you don’t want to go in. You can come sit with me. Do you want to build a sand castle?”_

_So Gou played with a bucket and spade, and collected seashells, and wrote her name in the sand, while Rin splashed and played and tumbled with his friends, as at home in the water as he was on land._  
  
***

Gou and her mother leaned on one another for support as they moved slowly up the familiar path, treading carefully in their wooden shoes. Rin followed a few paces behind, ready to reach out if either of them stumbled. But the walk was uneventful, and the sun was brilliant over the ocean when they reached the gravesite at the top of the hill. As beautiful as the shrine had looked in the breaking dawn, this hilltop in the full light of the morning was breathtaking.

Hatsu approached first, still carrying the flowers. “Rin, honey,” she said, “bring some water.”

Rin did as he was told, fetching the small wooden bucket that hung by the far end of the row of stones. He filled it at the tap that protruded there, and carried it over to his mother.

“Good,” she said. “Go ahead.”

Rin pushed back his coat sleeves and rinsed the stone carefully, scrubbing at it with a rag and pulling up some weeds that had grown alongside it. He wiped off his hands, blowing on them to warm them up, and then stepped back. Gou moved forward to clean out the vases and remove the dead flowers before their mother replaced them with fresh ones.

Gou surprised Rin by setting out a dry urchin shell alongside the burning incense and candle, but their mother took no notice. She pressed her palms together in front of her chest and inclined her head. On either side of her, Rin and Gou did the same.

“Oh, Tora,” she sighed quietly. “We miss you very much. But your children are growing up strong and bright. We have a lot to be grateful for. Thank you for watching over us.” Then the three of them prayed in silence.

When they finally made to leave, when Rin went to return the bucket and their mother looked out to the sea, standing apart for a moment alone with her thoughts, Gou stayed in front of the gravestone, looking thoughtful. Rin came back to see her squatted down in front of it, hands behind her to hold her hem off the ground, smiling secretively.

“What was that all about?” he asked as they made their descent. 

Gou pushed the trailing blossoms of her hair flowers back from her face. “I had a lot to tell him this time, that’s all.”

Rin raised an eyebrow, but didn’t push. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. It was Makoto.

“Sorry,” he said to Gou and his mother, and then, “Yo, Makoto,” into his phone.

After a pause he grinned and said, “You read my mind. Meet us around noon? Gou still has her pass, so as long as it looks like official club business we should be fine. Mmm. Oh, yeah? Well, tell Haru to prepare for total aquatic obliteration. Yeah, see you soon!” He hung up and turned to his mother.

“Mom, the guys from the swim club want to meet up for the afternoon. What time do you want us back by?”

Hatsu chuckled to herself. “Can’t keep any of you away from the water, can I? Be home by six, seven at the latest. There’s enough food to feed a small army. In fact, if any of your friends want to come, bring them along too.”

“Ah, sure! Thanks, Mom. Gou, what do you think?”

“What do I think of what?” She looked like she had guessed, but wanted to hear the plans from him.

“What do you think of meeting your team at the Samezuka pool and showing them a sight they’ve never seen before?”

Gou’s face broke into a huge grin, radiant as the sun on the hilltop. “I’m ready, onii-chan!” she declared. “Let’s go!”

Chuckling, Rin put his hands into his coat pockets. He felt around for the charm he’d bought at the shrine earlier that morning. As was his New Year’s custom, he had bought the Success charm, knowing full well what goal he was aiming for. 

But this year, he’d also bought a wooden wish board, which he had written out and left hanging on the wall at the shrine. On it, in English, he’d carefully penned, “ _May my family have happiness in the new year._ ”

Rin slowed his steps. He looked at his mother and sister in their coordinating kimono, the latter glowing with excitement, the former smiling with a peaceful look of pride, and decided he had chosen his wish well. Then Gou turned her head to look at him expectantly, and he caught up, following the two of them back down the path, back home.

 

_~[shark]fin~_

**Author's Note:**

> "Sure, I'll write something for Rin's birthday countdown! Some sibling fluff, there's not enough of that. Probably 2k of them going sledding or something, haha." ...and then... this. why.
> 
> I played a little fast and loose with canon, just because I had trouble keeping all the timelines straight. (The canon itself is inconsistent, which doesn't help.) If I've made any glaring errors in what happened when, please let me know. I took a couple cultural liberties wrt the grave visit at the end, for dramatic effect; hopefully nothing too distracting.
> 
> I've always wondered why Gou doesn't swim. It isn't even that she doesn't swim - it's that she can't. Swimming lessons are compulsory for most elementary school children in Japan, and clearly she comes from a swimming family. If it were just lack of athletic ability, I could see her not being a very good swimmer, but not swimming at all? So I decided to dig into that. This theory may not work for everyone, but I hope it makes an interesting story.
> 
> Mama Matsuoka hasn't been named in canon - I [took my lead](http://oyogihodai.tumblr.com/post/137451990394/i-see-that-youve-used-the-name-ohatsu-for-rin-and) from @[ellerean](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ellerean) in calling her [Hatsu](http://oyogihodai.tumblr.com/post/137452484534/hooray). Can that be a thing? Can we all call her Hatsu? She birthed and raised these two redheaded hellions; she deserves a name.
> 
> My beta editor is @[redcirce](http://archiveofourown.org/users/redcirce), who likes Mad Max and Doctor Who and femslash and gives zero fucks about anime or swimming or emotional high school boys, and yet continues to edit for me out of either the goodness of their heart or a begrudged sense of obligation. D: THANK YOU REDCIRCE ~~I'M SORRY I NEVER WROTE YOU THAT DOCTOR WHO/LABYRINTH CROSSOVER~~
> 
> I have two little sisters and all the older sibling feels, so this was really nice to write. Happy birthday, Rin!


End file.
